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Least Squares Demo

Shows small set of data points. You can move a line around and watch as squares get bigger or smaller. The squares are the squares of the residuals. The least squares method makes the total size of the squares the smallest possible. Also draws the mean line and residuals and calculates the sums of the squares and the sum of the residuals. Allows user to add points.

Identifier: 
http://sambaker.com/courses/J716/demos/LeastSquares/LeastSquaresDemo.html
Subject: 
Rating: 
Average: 4.3 (4 votes)
Creator(s): 
Sam Baker
Cataloger: 
Daniel Drucker
Publisher: 
Sam Baker
Rights: 
Sam Baker

Comments

Anonymous's picture

Nice applet for doing least squares. It should be very useful in the classroom. There is an audio lecture that demonstrates how to use the applet. You can use mouse to move line around and also see residuals and squares of residuals. The sum of the squares of the residuals is displayed, so one can move the line around to try to minimize the sum of the squares. One can then draw the actual least squares line to see how close we came to finding it geometrically. This should work very well in the classroom.

Anonymous's picture

The points are randomly generated, rather than user-entered.